


Denial—is the only fact

by middlemarch



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Jewish Character, Lorelai is not a runaway bride, Marriage, Married Sex, Max is a good stepfather, Romance, Season 3 AU, references to Proust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She'd gone through with it, the wedding to Max. There was no one, not Rory, not Sookie, not one person on God's green earth she'd ever admit she thought of her wedding that way, as something she'd had to get through, like a root canal or driving across the Bay Bridge in the fog, when it seemed like you were driving off a cliff. Yeah, no way was anyone hearing that from her.And Max was such a good husband. She was happy. She was.
Relationships: Lorelai Gilmore & Rory Gilmore, Lorelai Gilmore/Christopher Hayden, Lorelai Gilmore/Max Medina, Luke Danes/Lorelai Gilmore
Comments: 14
Kudos: 50





	Denial—is the only fact

They’d only repainted the living room. A color that Lorelai was not convinced was in any way different but that Max and Rory had insisted evoked a British country house after the War, WWI so Lost Generation, and Lorelai liked the sound of that and the fact that Max and Rory were ganging up on her in a way that felt like a normal step-father/step-daughter way because Christopher suddenly decided he was going to be Dad now and so Max was Max, which Max was totally okay with because he mostly only got upset when Lorelai dogeared pages in books and put her cold feet on his not-cold feet and after-the-fact when she got sick and came home early from work and didn’t call him but Sookie, who came by with very noodle-y homemade chicken noodle soup and he wrinkled his forehead up accordion-style and muttered about making his Bubbe Estzi’s matzoh ball soup. Which he did and then she carefully didn’t tell Sookie how Max’s soup was nearly as good. Very, very nearly. It would have killed Sookie.

He’d given up his apartment without any fuss; the commute to Chilton was a little longer, but he could drive Rory in and it didn’t make sense to find a new place when they’d been settled in Stars Hollow for fifteen years and he’d been in his one bedroom for fourteen months. He didn’t object when Lorelai scattered his nicer furniture around the house and didn’t insist she hang any of his Japanese wood-block prints in any particular place. He asked Sookie to make a bittersweet bourbon mocha groom’s cake topped with madeleines largely because he knew it would make her happy though the madeleines were obviously for Proust, obvious anyway after he explained it in bed the week before they got married, the moonlight coming through the windows making everything silver grey like a pre-Code black-and-white movie, which accounted for his bare chest and the visible curve of Lorelai’s breast where the sheet was caught under his elbow.

She woke up with cold feet the day of the wedding and she drank an entire pot of coffee, used up all the hot water and stared out at the chuppah Luke had carved for ten solid minutes, getting from one moment to the next, into an ivory lace vintage dress and a veil, a pair of blue satin shoes, walking down the aisle with Rory. No one was stung by a bee. She kissed Max with the smell of freshly cut grass around them, her hand clutching his, his warm and relaxed. He brought his own French press on their honeymoon and made her a cup of coffee every morning while she slept in.

She was Lorelai Gilmore but she answered to Ms. Medina when the phone rang. She started picking up grapefruit, granola and whatever berries were supposed to be in season when she went to Doose’s Market. She went to Luke’s for lunch on weekdays when Max was teaching, breakfast on Sundays with Rory while Max read the Times for hours; she saw Luke’s face in the window when she drove by and he was always looking somewhere she couldn’t see. Babette once muttered something about _worse than Rachel_ within Lorelai’s hearing but it was just once and Babette started screaming for Maury before Lorelai could think to ask a question. Max kissed her goodbye before he left for work and he kissed her goodnight like he meant it and he called her Lora sometimes, his voice traveling across the house like a ribbon unwinding. She supposed they were happily married.

It was a Friday night Rory had decided to stay with Lorelai’s parents, in the petal pink room Emily had made for her, like a peony for Thumbelina. It was a Friday night they’d driven back to Stars Hollow with the radio on, the jazz station Max liked and Lorelai tolerated playing Erroll Garner. The traffic was light and they made good time; Lorelai had taken a bath, fallen asleep in her ratty bathrobe, and been woken up by Max opening the bedroom door. She’d shrugged out of the robe, hadn’t bothered to put on a tee-shirt or the truly beautiful peach silk negligee he’d bought her for her birthday. She was drowsy when he got in the bed but awake. She was awake and that was why it counted.

She might have said she was too tired and he wouldn’t have complained. She wasn’t though and he was so good with his hands, his mouth soft on her shoulder, the side of her throat… she didn’t tell him to stop. She felt him close behind her, eager, eager to make her press back against him, to call out his name. She closed her eyes and drifted, letting him stroke her, letting his desire become hers. She shifted when he touched her, made a little wanting sound when he settled himself between her thighs.

“It’s all right,” he murmured near her jaw, moving steadily against her. He had impeccable rhythm. “You can pretend it’s him.”

“What d’you—” 

“I know. If that’s what you need, what you want,” Max said, his voice low, the words interrupted by his open-mouthed kisses, the breathy sounds she was making as his hand moved confidently, deliberately against her. “You can pretend. Pretending is okay.”

“I don’t,” she said but she didn’t even convince herself.

“Lora, you do. You pretend I’m him, that he’s the one in your bed, he’s the one who’s going down on you, he’s the one fucking you,” Max said, never once saying who he was. That, that was a step too far. “Making love to you.”

“That’s not—oh, right there, oh, more, more—”

“I pretend too, Lora. I pretend I don’t know. I pretend you love me enough, you want me enough, just like that,” Max muttered, getting closer, harder. “Just like that, baby.”

“It’s not like that,” Lorelai panted. He really hadn’t been fair, deciding to have a conversation like this while he was making her hotter than she’d ever been. It occurred to her, distantly, like a message from icy Neptune, that maybe Max talking about what she wanted was what was making her so goddamn aroused. 

“Pretending is okay. Don’t lie to me,” he said, paused and then moving them so he was above her, her left leg hooked over his narrow hip. He was looking at her, his dark eyes so serious, so hurt, so loving. “You made me marry you under the chuppah he built and I did it, I knew what it meant. Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Max, oh, fuck, like that, I can’t talk to you like this,” Lorelai heard herself moaning and saw Max smile, a lock of his hair falling across his forehead as he urged her on, straining under her hands, his back broad, slick with sweat. Everything between them sounded obscene, raw.

“I don’t want to talk. I want you to be honest, I want to give you that, I want it,” he said, each phrase a thrust. She came, thoughtlessly, as it seemed like she did everything important, however much she filled up the air around her with words. She cried out something wordless as pleasure became relief, her body calm where her heart was not. She clung to him, not sure which of them she was trying to console.

“He never asked. I did. I asked twice. I wanted you enough,” Max said, still moving, still seeking something he’d never demand. “To risk you saying no. You said yes, Lora.”

“Yes. I said yes, mmm, that’s right, like that,” she said, her hands low on his back, coaxing him on.

“A thousand yellow daisies,” Max gasped. “And you still want him.”

“But I love you, love you,” she said, managing to reach his lips for a kiss, messy, graceless, real. It was a good thing neither of them believed in hell. She arched her back and he ground out _Lora_ through a clenched jaw, collapsed on top of her. It made it easier to hold him.

“I never finished the Proust,” she confessed moments, a lifetime, later. She could feel him laugh through her whole body.

“I never expected you to. I just wanted you to have the book,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to share you,” she said. She wasn’t going to say his name either.

“I don’t want to possess you, I want to know you. I want you to know I do,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “I’m heavy, I’m crushing you.”

“No, come back,” she said, pulling him closer. “I like this. This us. Don’t leave me, Max.”

“I won’t,” he said. She heard in his voice he understood she was talking about all the times Christopher had walked away, all the times Luke had stared at her and hadn’t spoken. “I promised. You don’t have to pretend that’s the truth.”

She supposed they were happily married. She trained honeysuckle to climb over the chuppah, not morning glories, because they died every day. And not roses because whatever her mother said, there would be thorns.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Emily Dickinson.
> 
> I understand I may be alone in this wide world in being pretty annoyed at the Lorelai/Max relationship turning into a stupid runaway bride scenario, but I still wanted to write this (I also have strong feelings about Luke building that chuppah when presumably Max is Jewish.) We're under an official stay-at-home order for the pandemic, so it's as good a time as any to write the fic you want to read.


End file.
